A look at two Atomic dancers

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A look at two Atomic dancers

By JONATHAN WINSLOW

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Lisa Montagne

Lisa Montagne has lived in Irvine since 2001, but she's been dancing since 1997. In that time, she's danced a mix of swing and ballroom dancing across the United States and Europe. Montagne visits the Atomic Ballroom several times a week, and has started taking private lessons to prepare for performances and team dancing.

Montagne's love of dancing started when she was a child. In those days, she would watch her grandparents dance the Foxtrot. Though she always had a passion for dance, she didn't really make it a part of her life until graduate school, where she knew a man who was involved in ballroom dancing. After meeting him, she realized that she, too, could cha-cha just like her grandparents did.

Montagne is a composition lecturer at UC Irvine, and says that she has come to rely on dancing to help her get through her work. Amid all of the teaching, writing and grading, swing dancing serves as a reliable outlet for her.

Montagne was able to attend the funeral of dancing icon Frankie Manning. After the funeral, she was at a dance party in Harlem, where she got to see Manning's son Chazz Young lead the room in a Shim Sham, just as his father did. When Young took the floor and the spotlight found him, Montagne felt a chill run down her spine. Taken with the power of dance as both an art and a sport, Montagne says that particular moment was one that she'll never forget.

Fran Jurnak

Though she hasn't been dancing for long, Fran Jurnak of Irvine has spent the past three years making up for lost time. Jurnak was a professor at UC Irvine in the department of physiology and biophysics for 15 years and just retired recently. She began dancing as a way to ease herself into retirement, and immediately became addicted. True to her training in biochemistry, Jurnak was interested in how dancing elevated her mood so quickly. She says that dancing boosts serotonin levels, resulting in her feeling reborn within half an hour of hitting the dance floor.

Jurnak is currently working with another professor from UCI to pursue grant proposals to teach autistic children to dance. She says group dancing is an excellent medium for keeping at-risk children away from drugs and alcohol.

One of the highlights from Jurnak's three years of dancing is a re-creation of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' iconic “Cheek to Cheek” routine that she performed with Atomic Ballroom owner Shesha Marvin. In preparation of the routine, Jurnak recreated the ostrich feather dress worn by Rogers. Jurnak wore the dress on her birthday, which happened to fall on the same day as a swing festival. Perhaps in recognition of her dress, the venue played “Cheek to Cheek.” That night, in her ostrich feather dress, Jurnak shared a dance with her husband, a dance which has formed one of her fondest memories in her relatively short time dancing.

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